Help to get Disciples of Anatomy to Edinburgh!

Hello, my name is Sofia and I am a writer in my second year of university. When I was 18, I was finally diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder, after dealing with the effects my entire life. Autism Spectrum Disorder can be debilitating, and often goes completely undiagnosed in female identifying individuals. This meant that at school, I had to fight the powers that be for the adjustments I needed, as people either did not believe me, or thought that I was coping.

In my first year of university, I expressed myself through writing short horror stories for the university website,which allowed me to explore one of the positive effects of my ASD, which has been my love of writing, history, and theatre. Anyone who knows me, knows that I adore The Victorians. The Victorians have always been my special interest, ever since I was a child. After being given the once in a lifetime opportunity to attend the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2022 with my school, I vowed to make it a twice in a lifetime experience, as I have always loved theatre, and found writing and performing a real solace.

In 2025, I had to make the hard decision to postpone Disciples of Anatomy , due to an inability to keep up with the ever-rising prices of the Fringe festival.However, with your help, in 2026 I hope to be bringing my original play Disciples of Anatomy to the Edinburgh Fringe. The play is a Gothic drama, exploring the repercussions of the mistakes made by corrupt Victorian surgeons upon their wives and reputations. Your donation will be used to give myself, and the cast and crew of nine wonderful young people from across the UK the opportunity to bring this story to the Fringe, and the funds will go towards costumes, props, accommodation, poster printing, travel, rehearsal rooms and venue hire. As well as looking after our cast of seven and crew of three. The Edinburgh Fringe, due to the lack of arts funding, grows more and more expensive every year, with the cost of a venue being thousands of pounds alone. We cannot do this without your help. Growing up, all I wanted was to see was a girl like me, in the time period I was so enamoured with. And, this play features one of the only (if not the only) canon autistic female protagonist in a theatrical period drama.

My dream is to make period dramas more accessible for wider audiences, moving away from the southern accented, rich lives of the characters we are so used to seeing. More than anything, I want to show people that Autistic woman are not simply an idea of the present, but that we have always been here throughout history.

I need your help to tell this story for the Autistic women who weren't allowed to.

The world is a scary, and often hopeless place, and many other causes need your money. I ask you, while you are here, to look around for other individuals, and families needing your help, and spare the moment to give them anything you can.

Disciples of Anatomy relies on your funding alone, so please take a look at our instagram and tiktok under the same name! From myself, and the rest of the cast and crew, we thank you.

-All my love,

Sofia ;) x.